


every word is the truth

by zarinthel



Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M, beetleland
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:54:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28821819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarinthel/pseuds/zarinthel
Summary: just three ghosts being dead
Relationships: Beetlejuice/Adam Maitland/Barbara Maitland
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	every word is the truth

“Lawrence Betelgeuse Maitland-Deetz!” Barbara calls from behind him, hands on her hips. “You’re dripping some... green... muck... all over the floor!” 

“Well _that’s_ certainly not my name,” Beetlejuice drawls, whirling around and trying to hide something suspiciously like a barrel of wine with a huge skull and crossbones in place of a label behind his back. “Didn’t see you there, Barbara. You’re lookin’ just....” His eyes follow the tapping of her foot all the way up through her curves until they rest squares just a little to the left of her face. “Absolutely, positively ravishing, though your beauty is devoured and diminished, all by your lonesome.” 

Not that he’s being ironically self-referential, or anything. 

“Aww, thank you.” Barbara poses happily. “Me and Adam were thinking it was time to really get out there and meet some people, you know! We’re such homebodies lately. I mean, well, our bodies _are_ here, but we were planning on doing something exciting-- why, Adam suggested going grocery shopping!” 

Her eyes glance back down to whatever Beetlejuice has tracked all over the kitchen. 

“But I think that will have to wait,'' she says, nose wrinkling a little. “Oh dear.” 

“Oops,” says Beetlejuice, and smears it some more with his foot. “Oh, look at that. Seems like you could use a buddy. Don’t you want a--” 

“Broom, yes I do!”

“Yes, you do?” Beetlejuice blinks, energies of the netherworld diverted into manifesting an oddly curved witch’s broom. “No! Wait!” He points down at himself, then at the house at large. “Aren’t you gonna comment? I made it back from the Netherworld! Doesn’t the audience deserve an explanation?” 

“The audience?” Barbara’s eyes widen. “Oh no, I completely forgot to tell you! Lydia’s school play is today-- that’s why she’s not here right now. She’s playing the role of a wailing ghost-- we're so proud of her!” 

Barbara beams. 

“Adam’s been helping her practice her lines you know! Back when he was in college, he actually did a little bit of theatre himself.” 

“Boring Adam Maitland?” Beetlejuice asks, mocking. “Are you sure he didn’t walk into the wrong door by accident?”

“Well, he was a very dashing corpse in a war torn field,” Barbara says loyally. “And me and Adam have always been interested in trying new things.” 

Beetlejuice sidles up close to her, sneaking the bottle onto the counter even as he breathes down her neck. 

“New things huh,” He says. “Like maybe--”

“Lawrence!” Adam calls down from the stairway, sounding shockingly glad to see him. “Oh, this is perfect! Have you seen my new project?” 

For a ghost caught in the eternal stasis of early male pattern balding, death suits Adam like a Victorian corset-- confining, but sexy. 

Adam triumphantly holds up a dented silver menorah so patinahed from time that even the clean parts of it hold this spotted gold shimmer of resistance to such mundane materials as cheap silver polish. 

For some reason, Beetlejuice finds it difficult to breath-- probably because he’s dead. 

“And what is _that_ old thing?” He asks. “I didn’t know your plan to go grocery shopping involved burning down the house-- I’d have shown up sooner!” 

“My mother’s old menorah!” Adam says, cheerful. “I was so afraid it got thrown out with everything else when we died-- but no, it was up in the attic the whole time.” Eerie lights from beyond the grave glow from the end of the piece as he swings it around, before guttering out in a strange gust of air. 

He processes the rest of Beetlejuice’s sentence. 

“Burn down our house? But we live here! Lydia and her family live here! Even you live here, sometimes.” Adam clutches the menorah like a lady her precious pearls. Come now, ten years with someone like Barbara and you still behave like you’ve never done anything more exciting than some hanky panky underneath the school bleachers. Just skim the layer of face lotion and grease off the top of the high school swimming pool and use it for---

“We can hear you, honey,” Barbara says. One of her hands is covering her mouth. 

Beetlejuice’s motormouth comes to a rattling, smoking halt. 

“Can’t you give a guy some privacy around here?” He asks rhetorically, raising his eyes to the ceiling as if someone’s about to answer him from up there. “You kiss someone on the mouth for a joke and suddenly they're just like ‘Ohh, let’s listen in on his soliloquies. Let’s just,” He snaps his fingers, “Have a funny little nickname for our resident house demon. He won’t mind!’”

“You use tongue for all of your jokes?” Adam asks him. 

“Oh, baby, I use tongue for all sorts of things,” Beetlejuice shoots back, his smile morphing into a sly grimace that no one’s told him never works as a come-on. “Not that I bet Barbra’s ever experienced that.” 

“Beetlejuice!” Both of them exclaim, voices overlapping with their maidenly blushing. 

Beetlejuice laughs, back on safe and familiar ground. “What? Can’t handle the truth? Or can’t handle the taste?” 

Barbara and Adam exchange glances. 

Adam sets his dinky little menorah down on the kitchen counter. 

“Lawrence,” He starts. “Me and Barbara were talking about this.” 

“About having sex?” Beetlejuice says. “What, did you stop. Hire me as your marriage counselor! I’ve got a great CV! And you two have seen my Craigslit score. I’m a catch!” 

“You’re certainly...something,” Barbara says. Adam drops his arm over her shoulder, snuggling her closer to him. Absolutely awful, they need counseling for sure. 

“We were talking about _you_ ,” Adam starts again. Behind the two, ghostly music begins to seep through the air, voices raised in a cheerful camp counselor type of choir. 

“Beetlejuice.” Adam starts. 

“ _Beetlejuice_ ,” Barbara sighs. “Be a dear, will you? Sit down with us.” 

“We only started having fun after we died,” Adam says. “So we wanted to thank you-- no matter what other trouble you caused, you were the one who offered to be our guide!” 

“Oh, no,” Beetlejuice says, cutting that music off at the root. “We’re not doing this. I’m the one who brings the ghostly back up around here. Not you two.” 

It’s like kicking puppies, but without the thrill. 

“Can’t we do something nice for you?” Barbara asks, sounding genuinely upset. “I was looking this up when Lydia’s step-mom brought home that whole trunk full of self-help books the other day! Engaging with your friends means supporting their hobbies!” 

“That’s right,” Adam says. “We could do another scare fest. Really shake up the neighborhood.” He makes the worst attempt at a scary face that Beetlejuice has ever seen-- and he’s seen Adam try this before. 

“I’d be ashamed to be seen next to you two,” Beetlejuice says, but it rings hollow in his throat. Three pronged tongue, and all that. He’s a demon! Sue him. 

The married couple exchanges another glance. 

There’s nothing quite like the way the Maitland couple died together in their loving home with their empty crib (never used) to make a man feel like he missed out on more than a 3D movie with some popcorn. To make a demon want to tie people to _him_ with a ball and chain... 

“Don’t let me get in your way,” Beetlejuice says, ready to be done with the place that he’d traveled a thousand miles to crash on their couch. Sleep on their roof. Whatever. The slime that cakes the tiles on the kitchen floor will have to be enough to remember him by. 

“Lawrence,” Barbara says. She clears her throat. “We may still be, uh, suburban, middle class, and white--” 

“Obviously.” 

“Obviously. But there’s plenty scary about that, right? Mortgages. The PTA. The alarming way school funding is distributed in our county---”

“Barbara,” Adam says. “I think you’re making him nervous.”

“I’m not nervous,” Beetlejuice lies, sweating through his suit. 

“He’s not nervous,” Barbara says. “I’m getting there, Adam. So, we were thinking. You’re not the best kisser out there, though that’s probably a lack of practice--”

“Ooh,” says Beetlejuice. “Burn.” He thinks his hands might be physically shaking, which if so has nothing to do with this conversation and everything to do with how excitable and fun he is as a person. 

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Barbara says, biting her lip. Her pretty lips. “I just meant, well. We’d be willing to... learn how to live a little. With you.” 

The little choo-choo train that chugs along inside of Beetlejuice’s skull in lieu of a functioning moral compass promptly jumps its tracks, killing a few cows and sheep along the way. 

“You mean sex,” he says. “ _Ghost_ sex.” 

They both look at him. The menorah on the table looks at him. The bottle of netherworld wine that he’d brought for the holidays looks at him. For just one whole minute, the whole world stops whatever it’s doing to all stare at him in the judging manner of a southern mother at trader joe’s trying to read the label of knock off, organic oreos. 

Then Adam steps forward, and bends down to catch Beetlejuice in another kiss, sloppy and deep. Beetlejuice swallows as Adam pulls back, catching the edge of teeth as they separate. 

“Yes, Lawrence,” Adam says. “So, what do you say?” 

“You said yes...” Beetlejuice says, blindsided. “ _Yes_. Yes. Yes!”

**Author's Note:**

> this was pretty fun.


End file.
